The Good Friday Doubting Thomas

Ronald Reagan step aside. Here we are at the end of a week and the beginning of a weekend that is so very important in the history of Jews and Christians – a week in which gay rights and other secular issues dominate the headlines – and we are all about the Apostle Thomas. It was the Apostle Thomas, who after the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday, looked at his divine mentor and demanded inspection of the holes drilled into the hands by nails and the stab of a spear on the chest. The Apostle Thomas was beating Ronald Reagan by millennia: Trust, but verify.

“With red state Democratic Senators remaining skittish about embracing Obama’s gun proposals, at least two top Democratic donors are stepping forward and vowing to withhold any and all future financial contributions from any Democrats who don’t support the centerpiece of Obama’s plan: Expanded background checks.

Kenneth Lerer, a New York businessman who is chairman of Buzzfeed.com, and David Bohnett, a technology entrepreneur and philanthopist based in Los Angeles, are both major financial supporters of Democratic candidates, having each given scores of large contributions over the years.”

Don’t trust Obama protecting Big Media outlets.

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Gee, it’s really hot outside isn’t it? It must be the hottest ever and getting hotter. No one can possibly be making money or ginning up temperature data right? It must be hotter and getting hotter and hotter since it began to get hotter:

DEBATE about the reality of a two-decade pause in global warming and what it means has made its way from the sceptical fringe to the mainstream.

In a lengthy article this week, The Economist magazine said if climate scientists were credit-rating agencies, then climate sensitivity – the way climate reacts to changes in carbon-dioxide levels – would be on negative watch but not yet downgraded.

Another paper published by leading climate scientist James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says the lower than expected temperature rise between 2000 and the present could be explained by increased emissions from burning coal. [snip]

But the fact that global surface temperatures have not followed the expected global warming pattern is now widely accepted.

Research by Ed Hawkins of University of Reading shows surface temperatures since 2005 are already at the low end of the range projections derived from 20 climate models and if they remain flat, they will fall outside the models’ range within a few years.

“If we have not passed it already, we are on the threshold of global observations becoming incompatible with the consensus theory of climate change,” he says.

Whitehouse argues that whatever has happened to make temperatures remain constant requires an explanation because the pause in temperature rise has occurred despite a sharp increase in global carbon emissions.”

“The most revealing essay in Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality?* was entitled “Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the War on Terror.” Hinging upon the premise that “besides terrorism, gender and sexuality are the grounds upon which the Islamophobic wars at home and abroad are fought,” the authors sought to portray discussion of homosexuality in Muslim countries as a new form of the 19th-century mission civilisatrice of the French empire.

Coming in for special scorn were those Muslims who themselves criticized attitudes in their own cultures. [snip]

So averse are these academics to finding fault in Arab, Muslim, or other nonwhite communities that they have attempted to isolate mere discussion of homophobia by decrying it as a form of racism. Indeed, according to them, the promotion of gay rights is itself an offshoot of racism. [snip] In other words, to expect immigrants from nonwhite majority countries to reject wife-beating and tolerate gay relationships is to be a racist.

The last stripe in this rainbow flag of cynical distortion is the alleged phenomenon of “pinkwashing,” defined by City University professor Sarah Schulman in a New York Times op-ed in 2011 as the “deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life.”

Though the phrase gained worldwide attention thanks to Schulman, it actually first came to prominent attention in a 2010 piece in the British Guardian by Rutgers academic Jasbir Puar, who claimed Israel was engaged in a “gay propaganda war,” using its supposed openness to homosexuality as a smokescreen to trick gay activists into thinking better of it rather than standing with those who argue Israel is an evildoer because of its conduct toward Palestinians.

The campaign against “pinkwashing” reached a paranoid height in 2011 in a determined campaign by Arab and left-wing gay activists against gaymiddleeast.com—a Web portal featuring news and information about gay-related issues across the Middle East. [snip]

And, according to its enemies, the site failed to condemn Israel and the positions of its government on issues wholly unrelated to gay rights (such as relations with the Palestinians). To add insult to injury, it had the temerity to publish “article after article of [sic] how awesome Tel Aviv’s gay life is,” rather than the “anti-apartheid statements of the various Arab LGBT groups.” [snip]

What the relativists ultimately cannot stomach are moral arguments coming from the mouths of Westerners, directed at non-Westerners. [snip] These ideas will get an airing in April at the City University of New York, at a conference entitled “Homonationalism and Pinkwashing,” in which the United States will also be accused of using its supposed open-mindedness toward homosexuality as a propaganda tool. To the proponents of the “pinkwashing” meme, the hard-fought, tangible victories won by gay people over the past five decades are illusory, because America remains a capitalist, oppressive, and imperialist hegemon.

“In the United States, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have been invited into an equality defined, not by rights, but by the ability to participate openly in immoral wars,” Sarah Schulman writes in the conference description, reducing over half a century of gay-rights activism to enjoying, as an acknowledged homosexual, the right to kill innocent, dark-skinned people. By failing to engage in a more radical, Marxist critique of society, gay activists have sold out: They advocate for “assimilationist” goals like marriage and military service, when what they should really be doing is undermining the patriarchy and advocating pacifism. They have become handmaidens to “homonationalism,” or the “collusion between LGBT people and identification with the nation state, re-enforcement of racial and national boundary, and systems of supremacy ideology no longer interrupted by homophobia.”

Who knew? If you drink a Mimosa at a gay bar you’re a racist! If you’re gay and don’t burn the American flag you’re a racist! If you’re gay and are mostly interested in Judy Garland and Ru Paul – you’re a racist! That’s how crazed the Obama left DailyKooks have become.

If you think Judeo-Christian Western civilization and culture has virtues in abundance and lessons to teach you’re a racist!

There’s a lot in that article worth reading. If you want to help free Muslim gays with policies recycled from the campaign to help Soviet Jewry the article has some ideas to consider. If you want to read how corrupt the Obama left is (hint: gay Muslims are smart to cooperate with the gay hating misogynist Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and give these thugs power), indulge yourself.

Back in 2007 almost from the very first postings in this website we declared that “Obama cannot be trusted”. Eventually entire articles detailed why “Barack Obama cannot be trusted.” Our catechism was written:

“Obama simply cannot be trusted. Obama cannot be trusted on any issue. Obama cannot be trusted by his friends. Obama cannot be trusted by his enemies. Obama cannot be trusted.”

Whether he’s trying to make nice with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu or suddenly at the doorstep of Republicans, looking for meetings, Obama is starting his second term merely trying to get those he has to deal with to trust him.

They’d be better off trusting their instincts instead, which most likely tell them: Once bitten, twice shy.”

“Every woman knows the type. He doesn’t call when he said he would, he forgets Valentine’s Day, he’s late to pick you up – the only thing he has a good memory for is excuses. [snip]

President Obama’s recent flurry of “outreaching” and shifting policies suggests the political incarnation of just such a man. And those on the receiving end of his sudden flattery can be excused for trusting him just as much as one might a cad bearing flowers and an apology.

Obama has left a long trail of broken hearts, reneging on commitments to major groups – political, national, and social – that thought they might count on him. The great challenge of Obama’s second term isn’t one particular program or another. It’s merely getting people to trust him.“

“Last week, the Israelis were treated to the odd spectacle of an abruptly cuddly and warm American president who had previously insulted their prime minister, changed the starting point for negotiations with the Palestinians to the pre-1967 borders, and demanded an end to settlements as a prelude to peace talks.

So here he was in Jerusalem bearing gifts – quite literally, a framed wooden artifact from a synagogue visited by George Washington for Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and a set of original stationery by New York designer Christen Maxwell for the prime minister’s wife.

He lavished attention on Netanyahu, visited the grave of Zionism founder Theodore Herzl to dispel all doubt about his commitment to Israel’s existence and paid respects at the tomb of Yitzhak Rabin – but pointedly not that of Yasser Arafat when Obama briefly stopped in the Palestinian territories.

Oh, and he assured the Israelis that peace negotiations could begin even as settlement construction continued.

All he asked in return was to please trust that the United States – and ideally not Israel – will eradicate Iran’s nuclear program and not “cut it too close,” as Obama put it, to the point where nothing can be done.

“Just the week before, Republicans were barraged with a furious series of phone calls, visits, and White House invitations from a president who had ignored them for much of his first term and savaged them each time campaign season came around. Suddenly, the husband who’d been out club hopping and golfing with the boys was home for dinner and eager to help take care of the kids. [snip]

Republicans had better read the fine print, and remember that while tax increases happen today, spending cuts are for later and are always renegotiable.”

“The rest of those who find Obama has materialized out of nowhere at their doorstep should be just as careful.

The list includes gays who found out just last year Obama supports same-sex marriage; Hispanics who were promised immigration reform during Obama’s first term and are now told they’ll get it in the second; gun control advocates getting their due only after a horrific mass shooting got Obama’s attention; and environmentalists who thought global warming shouldn’t wait another four years before getting a serious response from a Democratic president. [snip]

Now, supposedly, they’ll all have their day in Obama’s court, even though the House is still run by Republicans.

But people don’t really change. Someone, and maybe everyone, will be disappointed. [snip]

And America finds out, contrary to what the president promised, that under Obamacare their premiums are rising, the cost of the program is soaring, and they might not be able to keep that plan and doctor they like after all.“

Doubting Thomas was right: Trust – but verify.

If Doubting Thomas lived today and knew Obama he would say:

“Don’t trust Obama. Obama cannot be trusted. Obama simply cannot be trusted. Obama cannot be trusted on any issue. Obama cannot be trusted by his friends. Obama cannot be trusted by his enemies. Obama cannot be trusted.“

These supremely weird, coiled cloud formations were recently captured by a satellite scoping out the Prince Edward Islands. No, not the one in Canada, the ones in the south Indian Ocean. Are they the product of a fast moving craft? The infamous HAARP program? A government weather machine spinning up? Or something else?

100% correct adm. That Boycott/Divest crowd is actually more of a threat to Israel
than most of it’s military enemies. They are disguising their anti-Israeli /Jewish State in a BS campaign comparing democratic Israel to apartheid S.Africa.

… The broader point here is that the administration has undone the carefully thought-out, heavily negotiated requirements of one the most successful pieces of social policy in modern times. The result is a resurgence in citizen dependency on government.
No doubt administration officials think they are being merciful to the working poor by easing the requirements. But there is no welfare program as effective as a job. Obama could do a lot more lasting good if he would place job creation ahead of purely ideological priorities that hinder it — such as tax increases, carbon regulation, limitations on oil and gas production (including the failure to approve the Keystone pipeline promptly), and onerous Obamacare mandates on employers.
President Clinton’s great achievement in social policy came along with a rare moment in Washington history, during which budget restraint, shrinking deficits and a major tax cut on investment were accompanied by a true economic recovery. Why can’t Obama’s administration simply follow in Clinton’s footsteps?http://washingtonexaminer.com/examiner-editorial-food-stamp-rolls-explode-after-obama-loosens-rules/article/2525686

SHV, one of the last contributions Roland Martin made for CNN surprised us. We’ll try to find it. As we recall Martin made the case for the GOP being far from dead, which is a message contrary to the usual Big Media spin.

The White House said one of the main goals of President Obama’s trip to Israel was to reassure Israelis that he is on their side, but a new Jerusalem Post poll found limited results on that mission.

Some 27 percent of Israelis think Obama is more pro-Israel than pro-Palestinan — only 1 percentage point more than before his visit, the poll found.

At the same time, the percentage who think he’s more pro-Palestinan fell dramatically, from 36 percent to 16 percent. And the proportion who think he’s neutral jumped from 26 percent to 39 percent.

So all in all, the president’s visit appears to have shifted Israeli public opinion in his favor, though maybe not as far as the White House may have wanted.

Granted, it had a ways to go. According to a poll before his trip, done by Maagar Mohot Institute and Maariv, 38 percent of Israelis at that point believed he was hostile to Israel, and only 10 percent had a favorable opininon of Obama.

I got an email from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz asking for donation because they went into the red getting Obozo reelected. Sure enough I checked the FEC records and it does appear they are around $18 million in the red (DNC Services Corporation). Obama for America is zeroed out and the Obama Victory Fund (the joint fund) has about $1 million.http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/candcmte_info.shtml

There was a saying in one of the old Maverick episodes. It went like this: save your confederate money son–the south will rise again. That is about how I feel about the Republican Party, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the big media spin. As a regional party they will be competitive. As a national party they are extinc–and they don’t know it, and they do not know why. That stupid autopsy they did merely serves to prove the point as to just how clueless they are. Pat Cadell is on the mark on that one as usual. One of two things is inevitable. Either they will morph into a dumbed down form of the Dimocrat Part. Or else, they will break apart and a third party will replace them. I have so many indications of this that no other conclusion for me is conceivable. As far as roly poly martin is concerned—little racist bastard that he is, he needs a devil, and so do his fellow race baiters. For him, a non-extinct Republican Party plus visions of slavery are sine qua non. Simply put, Martin is no position to speculate on the future of the Republican Party. To reach any definitive conclusion on that subject, one must look to the grass roots. Trust me they have no faith or trust in the establishment. Consequently, they cannot be counted upon to support the next RINO the establishment puts up, nor will their donors. Worse yet, they have no faith in their bloggers–not even mentioned in their autopsy report, and no vision as to where they want to be. Meanwhile, I do think now that a Hillary presidency is possible, which I would have welcomed before Benghazi, whereas now, I am inclined to be apolitical, because all I see looking ahead is a bleak fate for the American People, as the parasites consume the host, best stated perhaps by the estimable Nial Ferguson thusly:

“The third driver of change — nearly always overlooked by political scientists — is the tendency of even the best systems to degenerate as rent-seeking special interests grow on the body politic like barnacles on a ship’s hull, and civic virtue yields to human frailty. Westerners are justly proud of their various democratic systems, and Americans in particular regard their Constitution as the world’s best. Yet every comparative study of institutional quality — from the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index to the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators — tells the same depressing story. In many Western countries there has been a perceptible decline in the rule of law. Among the worst cases are South European “cradles of democracy,” Greece and Italy, which receive shockingly bad scores from the World Economic Forum. In the United States, meanwhile, the World Bank reports marked declines since 2000 in the control of corruption, regulatory quality, accountability and government effectiveness.

This “great degeneration” helps explain the slowdown in growth and productivity we have witnessed in the West in the past decade. We cannot blame it solely on the financial crisis, nor on the fact that (as the economist Robert Gordon recently argued) the information technology revolution has delivered much less than its own hype led us to expect. The world is changing not just because the Rest have got better, but also because — quite independently — the West has got worse. Indeed, much of the developed world today reminds me of what Adam Smith said about China in “The Wealth of Nations”: It has reached a “stationary” state in which growth is near zero and prosperity is enjoyed only by a corrupt bureaucratic elite.”

I was talking to a friend of mine today who has a doctorate in genetics, and believes there is a direct correlation between the shortened life spans which are starting to set in and genetic alteration of our food supply. This was news to me because the actuarial tables I have seen show a lengthening life span, whereas the latest edition of AARP show that we are 17th in the world for men, 16th in the world for women, which is a dramatic shift. The prime culprits in this are Monsanto, and DOW chemical. He tells me that scientists at the FDA were alarmed at the genetic alteration and wanted time to study the effects on human being, but they were threatened with their jobs by a former Vice President of Monsanto who is now a top official in Obama’s FDA. It is no longer the case that these corporations give money to politicians. Now it is much worse. Now they put their own people into government jobs where they can thwart the very mission of the agency as we see here. I see little hope for a system that operates that way. And this tragedy did not begin with Obama. It started with Bush 41 and Quale.

(CNN) — If you listen to the groupthink echo-chamber know-it-alls in Washington, the Republican Party has been decimated, destroyed, discombobulated and utterly distressed to the point of putting a “going out of business” sign out front and closing up shop for good.

Reality says that’s ridiculous.

On the national level, the GOP controls the U.S. House of Representatives while Democrats control the U.S. Senate and the Oval Office.

But the real power for the Republicans is on the state level, and there they are dominating Democrats.

Folks, that’s 30 out of the 50 states in the nation. The Democrats have governors in 19 states. (Rhode Island’s governor is an independent.)

What about both chambers on the state level? The GOP controls the legislature in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Count ’em up and that’s 26. The Democrats control 18 legislatures. Five of the remaining six are split between the two chambers and one has a nonpartisan, one-chamber legislature. [snip]

Meanwhile, Democrats are giddy, believing they have found a winning formula for the next generation by turning out young folks, gay and lesbian folks, black voters, Latino voters and lots of women. Sure, that coalition worked well for Obama, but there is no guarantee it will be the key to success for the next Democratic presidential candidate.

So while Democrats salivate at the prospect of winning the White House in 2016, Republicans continue to lay the groundwork for taking over the state houses and gubernatorial mansions, and building a formidable team of next-generation politicians to dominate there and in the White House.. [snip]

The real battles on same-sex marriage, abortion, education, spending, labor unions, and, yes, the Affordable Care Act are happening state by state. And Democrats are being caught flat-footed because they ignored the admonition of former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean to create a 50-state party, and instead, created a party that cared more about Congress and the White House. [snip]

I’m not buying for a second this silly notion that the GOP will have a Damascus Road experience and drastically change. It’s not going to happen. There will be some movement on the national level, but Republican grass-roots organizers are very well aware that the message the GOP is selling statewide is a winning formula.

Trust me, Republicans are concocting other pieces of legislation to bring change on the state level, regardless of what’s happening in Washington.

Thanks admin. Forgive my pessimism. I guess I have lived too long and seen too much. However, as Learned Hand said it is always dawn. Tomorrow perhaps we will see the faint light of dawn. Perhaps. Thank you for lighting the path for all of us, these past several years.

This rings true . . . Another Schumer scheme to grow the party and screw the country. That smirking greasy goofball could be the guest of honor at any old fashioned county fair, and the only question would be whether the highest valued use of his useless time would be on the ducking stool or pie in the face arcade.
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The fact Big Labor and Big Business have reached a compromise that imposes prevailing wages on the private sector should not sit well with anyone.

Immigrants…
To avoid paying prevailing wages, many employers will look for ways not to hire immigrants. In some areas, this will cause a shortage of workers and employers will naturally have to raise wages to a certain level to attract workers. However, as long as they can attract non-immigrant workers at a price below the prevailing wage, it would still be a cost savings as compared to paying prevailing wages. Who loses in this? The immigrant workers.

Unions…
If some employers do end up paying prevailing wages, when unions (and their members) realize non-union workers are making the equivalent of what they negotiate into union contracts, in most cases, there will be nothing for them to sell the union-free workers. In fact, this will be a deterrent for union organizing**.

** Why would a non-union worker pay union dues, when (s)he can get the same (or more) without a union? [Union organizers, don’t say you weren’t warned. This will be used against you in your quest for new members.]

Employers…
If employers end up being forced to pay artificially-inflated prevailing wages for low-wage workers, they will be forced to pass along their costs to their customers. In many cases, for those employers who can raise their prices, many of those customers will be the general public who will see prices increase in nearly every area where goods and services are now purchased from employers who employ low-wage workers.

None of this is good for stimulating the economy. In fact, it will be harmful.

Worst of all, in an economic system built on a quasi-free market, to have the federal government dictate what wages will be paid in the private sector and, worse, to dictate that said wages will be an above-market, premium wage is but one more nail in Capitalism’s coffin.

At a minimum, it’s a recipe for disaster.

The AFL-CIO, Chamber compromise is a bad deal all the way around.

[It would be negligent not to mention that this is the same scheme Barack Obama and union bosses used to kill immigration reform in 2005 and 2007.]

The guy woo wrote the above passages at Red State is a real expert in labor relations. He understands how that whole system operates as few others do. These are exactly the effects which will ensue out of this universally bad agreement. The motive here–on both sides, is strictly political–and, at the same time, economically ruinous. This will dry up the low skilled illegal alien market if it is vigorously enforced. The one area he does not mention is benefits, and with the skill set we are talking about here, they are insignificant. In a Teamster semi skilled setting however, they run 40% of total cost, so there it would be a factor. And that is where Hoffa is poised to fight the battle over Mexican truckers operating in the United States. Those truckers, employed by Mexican employers, would not have to comply with minimum wage and area standards, so that is the bigger worry for that organization.

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it and then hand it to them with the well-taught lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don’t do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”

—Ronald Reagan, March 30, 1961

President Reagan’s words, spoken 52 years ago this weekend, still ring true, with one modification. If we don’t defend our freedoms now against the onslaught of President Obama’s policies, we won’t have to wait until our sunset years for American freedom to be a distant memory.

These days Washington careens from crisis to crisis, most of them manufactured. The Obama White House and its allies are engaged in the kind of sky-is-falling melodrama normally reserved for the lives of teenage girls. (As the mother of teenage girls, I speak with authority on this, though the comparison does a disservice to teenagers.) With our attention diverted by each fiscal cliff or sequestration drama, we are at risk of missing the real threats to the republic.

President Obama is the most radical man ever to occupy the Oval Office. The national debt, which he is intent on increasing, has passed $16 trillion. He believes that more government borrowing and spending are the solution to every problem. He seems unaware that the free-enterprise system has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system devised by man.

Perhaps his ignorance of that fact explains his hostility toward the private sector. In one of his autobiographies, the president writes that he felt “like a spy behind enemy lines” during his brief stint working for private industry.

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The president has launched a war on Americans’ Second Amendment rights. He has launched a war on religious freedom. He has launched a war on fossil fuels. He is working to nationalize one-sixth of the economy with job-killing ObamaCare. He wants to collect a greater portion of every American paycheck, not for the purpose of paying down the national debt but to expand his governing machine. He doesn’t believe in creating a bigger pie with more opportunity for all. He believes in greater redistribution of a much smaller pie. If you’re unsure of what this America would look like, Google GOOG -1.06% “Cyprus” or “Greece.”

The president has so effectively diminished American strength abroad that there is no longer a question of whether this was his intent. He is working to pre-emptively disarm the United States. He advocates slashing our nuclear arsenal even as the North Koreans threaten us and the Iranians close in on their own nuclear weapon. He has turned his back on America’s allies around the world and ignored growing threats.

Al Qaeda is resurgent across the Middle East. President Obama stood by and did nothing when its affiliates in Libya killed the U.S. ambassador and three other brave Americans in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11. Then he and his administration misled the American people about the attack. Today, more than six months later, no one has been held to account. The clear message of this episode to America’s enemies around the world is: Attack us with impunity. You will suffer no consequences.

In the face of this reality, it is time for Republicans to get over their loss in 2012. We are all that stands between this president’s policies and a damaged and diminished America. It is time to get back in the fight.

And I do mean fight. Republicans are being counseled to move the party to the left, but in my experience, those who advocate more liberal policies for the GOP are wrongheaded or Democrats, or both. You can be sure that President Obama would welcome an America in which the Republican Party is preoccupied with remaking itself into a watered-down version of the Democrats.

It is time to defend our values with vigor and courage. We are conservatives. We believe in limited government, low taxes, a strong national defense, individual freedoms, self-reliance, the importance of the family, and the miracle and authority of America’s founding documents. We know that government is best that governs least and governs closest to the people. We know that the private sector is the engine of economic growth. We know that America is the exceptional nation, the best that has ever existed. We know that the men and women who wear the uniform of the U.S. military are the greatest fighting force and the greatest force for good that the world has ever known.

We know that preventing this president from enacting devastating policies is not obstructionism. It is patriotism.

The miracle of the Constitution resides to a large extent in the first three words, “We the People,” placing sovereignty with us, not with our rulers. We are the inheritors of these blessings of liberty, and it is our solemn duty to fight for, protect and defend our freedom. Now is the time to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off, and man the barricades for freedom.

Other unintended consequences of this guest worker at minimum wage agreement will do will be to raise the cost of food, and other essentials on the middle class. The wealthy Obamaites could give a shit, and would be happy if they could also do their carbon tax bullshit too, because they really do want a have and have not society, which they can control. The other effect will be to prompt more and more automation. At some point, the capital costs amortised over the useful like of the asset become cheaper than hiring employees at above market wages, and subject to regulatory costs. That is where this thing is headed. Like I say, this deal represents a triumph of politics over sound economic policy, but whores like Schumer could care less.

The way to have done this right would have been to stair step up to minimum wage, or something short of minimum wage. I think it is wrong to pay people on a guest worker program the same wages as an American citizen, particularly when it is not necessary. But it gives big business the labor supply they want, undercuts low cost competition and because the real beneficiaries are large agribusinesses, they can pass the costs off to the consumer, and benefit from the economies of scale. In the end, this deal will squeeze out the little guy.

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, will be nominated to be the next ambassador to Japan, the Washington Post reports.

“Looks like there will be a Camelot East ­ make that Far East: Caroline Kennedy is heading to Tokyo to be the U.S. ambassador. Kennedy, whose support for President Obama during his 2008 campaign was seen as crucial, had been widely talked about as a candidate for the plum diplomatic post, but now things have apparently been firmed up,” reports the Post.

Byron York: Democrats set to jam immigration reform through Senate
Given the enormity of the changes that would result from comprehensive immigration reform, Senate Democrats wouldn’t try to rush a bill through the Judiciary Committee before the public gets a chance to know what’s in it — would they?
In the past few days, even though proposed reform legislation from the so-called Gang of Eight hasn’t even been written, there have been strong indications that that’s exactly what Democrats intend to do.
More than a week ago, most of the Republican members of the committee wrote a letter to Chairman Patrick Leahy asking that the panel take its time considering a reform proposal. It took years, and a hundred hearings, and hundreds of witnesses, to reach an agreement when reform was last passed in the 1980s, the senators argued. This time, the committee shouldn’t hurry a bill through committee in a few weeks.
Among other requests, the GOP senators asked for the chance to question Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The Judiciary Committee’s last Homeland Security oversight hearing was in April 2012, they noted, and Napolitano still hasn’t answered follow-up questions from that session. Now, especially since Napolitano has clearly voiced her opposition to GOP border security demands, it seems logical that she would appear before the committee considering reform.
The Republican letter carried a certain amount of weight because it was signed by six of the eight GOP members of the committee: ranking member Charles Grassley, John Cornyn (the number-two Republican in the Senate), Orrin Hatch, Jeff Sessions, Mike Lee, and Ted Cruz. The other two Republicans on the committee, Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake, are part of the Gang of Eight.
If the GOP lawmakers hoped to receive a quiet, well-reasoned response from Leahy, they were certainly disappointed. In a letter to Sessions laced with pique, personal invective and an unmistakable air of fuggedaboudit, Leahy told committee Republicans what they can do with their concerns….http://washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-democrats-set-to-jam-immigration-reform-through-senate/article/2525736

Much of the president’s agenda is stuck, with climate change regulations delayed, immigration reform mired in committee negotiations and prospects for a grand bargain budget deal in limbo at best.

On Tuesday, in a decision that underscored Obama’s depleting political capital, the White House watched as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced only a watered-down version of Obama’s gun control proposals would be considered on the Senate floor.

Republicans, sensing the sea change, are licking their chops. They point to the lack of movement on Obama’s signature issues, noting the contrast to the ambitious plans outlined in the early weeks of his second term.

“The president set very high goals for himself during his State of the Union, but the reality is very little of his agenda is actually moving,” Republican strategist Ron Bonjean said. “He allowed himself to get caught up in the legislative quicksand, [and] the cement is beginning to harden. “

History isn’t on Obama’s side.

The last four presidents who won a second term all saw their poll numbers slide by mid-March with the exception of Bill Clinton, whose numbers improved in the four months following his reelection. [Barry is gonna hate that statement}